Rod Burstall facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Rod Burstall
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| Born | November 1934 (age 90) Liverpool, England
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| Alma mater | University of Cambridge University of Birmingham |
| Known for | COWSEL (renamed POP-1), POP-2, NPL, Hope |
| Awards | ACM SIGPLAN 2009 Programming Language Achievement Award |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Computer science |
| Institutions | University of Edinburgh |
| Doctoral advisor | N. A. Dudley K. Brian Haley |
| Doctoral students | Thorsten Altenkirch John Darlington Mike Gordon Conor McBride J Strother Moore Alan Mycroft Gordon Plotkin Don Sannella |
Rodney Martineau "Rod" Burstall was born in 1934. He is a very important British computer scientist. He was one of the four people who started the Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science at the University of Edinburgh.
Rod Burstall's Amazing Journey
Rod Burstall first studied physics at the University of Cambridge. After that, he went to the University of Birmingham to get a special degree called an M.Sc. in operational research. This field is all about using math and computers to help organizations make better decisions.
He worked for three years before going back to Birmingham University. In 1966, he earned his Ph.D., which is a very high university degree.
Rod was a big supporter of "functional programming". This is a way of writing computer programs using special functions. He also helped develop "pattern matching" and "list comprehension". These are clever ways for computers to find specific information and create lists.
He is famous for his work with Robin Popplestone. Together, they created exciting programming languages called COWSEL (later known as POP-1) and POP-2. They developed these languages at the University of Edinburgh around 1970.
Later, Rod worked with John Darlington on a language called NPL. They also explored "program transformation", which means changing computer programs to make them better. He also teamed up with David MacQueen and Don Sannella to create Hope. This language was a very important step before other popular languages like Standard ML, Miranda, and Haskell.
In 1995, Rod was chosen to be a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. This is a special honor for people who have done great things in science and learning.
Rod Burstall retired in the year 2000. He became a Professor Emeritus, which means he still holds his professor title even after retiring.
In 2009, he received a big award called the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) SIGPLAN Programming Language Achievement Award. This award recognized all his amazing contributions to computer programming languages.
Books by Rod Burstall
Rod Burstall has also written some important books about computer science:
- In 1971, he wrote Programming in POP-11, published by Edinburgh University Press.
- In 1980, he co-wrote Artificial Intelligence: An Introductory Course with Alan Bundy. This book helped people learn about artificial intelligence, which is about making computers think like humans.
- In 1988, he wrote Computational Category Theory with D. E. Rydeheard. This book explored advanced ideas in computer science.
